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meglo91

For Christmas I bought a $100 piece of prime rib and for that amount of money I was desperate to not. mess. it. up. I used Kenji's low-temp reverse sear method and it worked beautifully. We had juicy medium-rare meat for DAYS. Thanks Kenji!

Thank you for this series. I love it so much. It is not only the best thing I've ever read on SE, it's one of the best series I've ever read, period.
As a sidenote, thanks also for introducing your SE readership to shou sugi ban. My husband's big hobby is carpentry. I sent him a link to your post about using shou sugi ban in your new place. Within a week he had made me a new patio table, a new spice rack, and a pot rack, all using shou sugi ban. It is such a beautiful and functional thing.

When I was 6, my brother brought home a plate of pernil (Caribbean roast pork) that our Puerto Rican neighbors had made by digging a giant hole in the ground and roasting a pig in banana leaves for 2 days. It was indescribably good, and my family quickly adapted the recipe for our oven. It has become an annual favorite.

My first cookbook was the Frugal Gourmet Cooks Italian. I was 7 and hijacked it from my parents' cupboard before picking out a recipe that involved chicken thighs, white wine, cream, and capers. It was delicious and I still make the dish!

Czken, oh lord, I know the things you're talking about -- the rasher of bacon chips. I know longer remember the brand, but I love them. I also love -- love! -- the snacks that are shaped like, and supposedly taste like, sausage (cajbaika), and also the ones that taste like chicken and potatoes. I don't know what weird chemicals they use to produce that flavor, but I don't care. They are like salty heroin.

JerzeeTomato, your comments are idiotic. The Costco membership fee is $50, but the food savings from shopping there over the course of a year equal far more than the membership fee. Which means that, if the impoverished family receiving food stamps can scratch up the $50 fee (which the government does not and will not pay for), then that family can actually make taxpayers' money go farther on their $200 or so per month in food stamps, thus (possibly) obviating the need for further increases in assistance. Why should a poor family have to pay $5/pound for hamburger at Fairway here in NYC when they can get it for $2/pound at Costco?
And the ability to pay $50 PER YEAR for a Costco membership doesn't mean that family doesn't deserve food asistance! The ability to pay $50 doesn't meant they don't need the $2400 or so they get for the year. And there are a lot of reasons why poor people might want a Costco membership. For instance, I am recently unemployed and don't have a penny to spare at the moment, but I pay for a Costco membership in part because of the food savings and in part because I don't have vision insurance and it's the absolute cheapest place for me to get eyeglasses.
And lastly, let me add that your comments about people who "have a slew of kids" are hurtful and ignorant. Most people on foodstamps don't have a slew of kids. Food stamp recipients range from the single to families to the elderly -- some of them have suffered misfortunes, and some of them are just plain struggling.

I have been one of those customers! Sometimes, particularly when it's a big group of peope, the math gets wonky and the tip gets miscalculated. The one time it happened, the waitress did exactly what you did. We took a look at the bill and a look at the tip, and then realized we were shorting her a well-earned $20. I was so glad she spoke up -- I would have hated to be an inadvertent miser. I always pride myself on giving decent tips because I know that serving is a tough job.

It will probably taste just fine -- maybe it will have a slight olive taste, but as long as you're OK with that, it's good. Taste if later on today and if you're concerned, I would add several chopped up, sauteed garlic cloves and about a half cup of red wine. Those are both flavors that will go with the rest and will help tone down the olive flavor.You can also try adding half a teaspoon of dried thyme leaves or a few bay leaves.
Not anywhere near the worst screwup I've heard of!

I've been looking for this stuff when I've thought about it for months now. I've gone to H Mart and to my favorite Flushing grocery store with no success. I think the problem is that I don't know what it looks like and so I can't recognize it. Help me out. How do I find this stuff? What does it look like?

I'm making cupcakes for my friend's birthday this weekend. She's still getting a regular birthday cake, so I am free to experiment with the recipe. I have some sweet black sesame paste in the fridge, and am thinking of making sesame cupcakes. I'm not decided on the frosting, though, and would welcome input. I'm leaning toward orange, but am also considering cream cheese frosting or honey flavored frosting. Any ideas?
Also: I thought about green tea, but I don't want to go get matcha powder, so that's a not.

Tonight I was planning on opening a can of black beans for dinner, which is my go-to dish when my fiance isn't around and I don't have too many weightwatchers points to spare.
Only problem is, I opened a can of chickpeas by accident. I was about to throw them into the fridge, but instead I came up with basil-lemon hummus:

In a food processor combine a drained can of chickpeas, two small cloves of garlic, a handful of basil, two tablespoons of olive oil, a teaspoon of lemon zest, and a tablespoon of lemon juice. Add salt and ppepr to taste and pulse to process.

Makes a delicious, garlicky, herby, lemony spread.

Eat on pepper & poppy water crackers while watching Big Trouble in Little China on Dvd.

Have you ever completely misunderstood the use of a food item from another culture to disastrous results? Have you ever seen anyone else do it?

In my first year of law school, I lived with a Chinese L.L.M. student named Yoyo (really) who had never come to the states before. One day she was hunting through the fridge and held up a jar of Hellman's.
"What do you do with this?" she said.
"Well," I said, "you can put it on sandwiches. Or, uh, on seafood. And it's in a lot of sauces. And oh yeah, sometimes we make pasta salad with it."
"Pasta?" Yoyo said. "Like lasagna?"
"No, like on salad with vegetables."
I was aware that I had done a really bad job of explaining pasta salad, but I decided to leave it there, figuring that it wouldn't come up.
Two days later I came home to a funny smell in the kitchen. I opened the door and there sat Yoyo, chopsticks in hand, poised to dig in to a steaming heap of noodles slathered in an entire jar of mayonnaise. I remember my movement toward her as a slow-motion dive, screaming "NOOOOOooooooo!"
I convinced her not to eat the hot spaghetti pasta. We went out for pizza instead.

I need to buy tamarind here in Queens, and no one seems to have it. I've tried the run of the mill grocery store and my favorite market in Flushing with no luck. I even tried the H Mart the other day, which in other cities is more of a pan-Asian store and doesn't concentrate so much on just Korean products. No dice there either.

Any leads would be very appreciated. Bonus points for stores around Sunnyside/Woodside/Astoria.

When my boyfriend and I lived in Singapore, one of our favorite dishes was curry pork rib noodle -- pork ribs simmered for hours in a thick coconut curry broth, then ladled over mee, which is like the Malaysian/Singaporean version of spaghetti. It was so unbelievably good. Now that we're back in the states, I'd love to make it but I can't find a recipe. Most of the stuff I've seen on the internet has no coconut milk. Has anyone ever run across a recipe for something similar?